The present invention relates to a method of loop detection and dissolution in a communication network including a plurality of nodes or network elements. More specifically, the present invention relates to an arboreal routing scheme for delivering communications to all nodes in the system without creating a loop.
Certain communication systems include a voice party line on every network element or node located within a plural node communication system. The voice of each participant in the party line is sampled and put in packets. These voice packets are distributed from the originating nodes to the nodes that are directly or indirectly connected to the originating node. At each node, the voice packet received from the each of the directly connected nodes is summed with the voice packets from all other nodes. This process is sometimes referred to as processing the “digital bridge”.
Voice packets are not sent back on the same port on which the voice packets have been received to avoid an echo effect. However, under certain conditions a loop forms within the network topology. When there is a loop within the network, a voice sample will be summed with itself repeatedly. The present invention provides a method of detecting and eliminating a loop which has formed within the network.
In addition, the present invention provides an arboreal routing protocol which detects the presence of a loop in the communication network and eliminates the detected loop without damaging the integrity of the communication of the nodes within in the network. Moreover, the arboreal routing protocol of the present invention requires little computing power from the network elements and converges very rapidly to a solution.